Rise of the Planet of the Apes director shares his sequel plans

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes was successful and acclaimed enough to definitely merit a sequel, and director Rupert Wyatt (like us) is excited about where the rejuvenated franchise will go next. In fact, he's so excited about the future of the apes that he left some clues in Rise's DVD and Blu-ray commentary track.

Wyatt seems particularly fascinated by how the character of Koba—the scarred ape with a bad attitude played with motion capture by Christopher Gordon—will figure in the future of the newly free apes. Calling Koba the "bad apple," Wyatt said that the character will likely become the "counterpart" to Caesar, the lead ape played by Andy Serkis that becomes de facto leader of a revolution:

"I'm really excited about what's to come in terms of the relationship between Koba and Caesar, because they're two such different individuals and they're going to perhaps need each other. There's going to be some sort of uneasy truce in the future that I think is necessary, I guess, for the conflict that is going to come."

But Wyatt isn't just concerned with how Caesar and Koba will co-exist. He's also looking on to bigger and better things, and he's already thinking about where the next film will pick up and exactly how humanity will be set up to be overthrown.

"But of course, there is more to come. We definitely needed to just lay the groundwork for how we're going to level the playing field for the next part of the story, which is the real conflict between humans and apes on a far bigger scale. Where we start that story remains to be seen, but my guess is it will be a generation after. In human years that's eight years for a chimpanzee, or any ape, actually ... we're setting up, perhaps, why humanity is going to be vulnerable enough for this ever-growing army of intelligent apes and their offspring to be able to take us on."

So a Rise sequel has already started to take shape in Wyatt's head, and now he's passed on something that will take shape in ours. We were already hoping for a sequel. Now we're flat-out craving one.